Rory Greenslade-Jones has praised his side for their admirable efforts during what has been an impressive return to National League rugby.

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Bracknell's hopes of back-to-back promotions slipped away on Saturday – but head coach Rory Greenslade-Jones is still reflecting on a highly successful season.

New to SSE National League 3 South West, Bracknell have always been among the leading pack this season.

However, Saturday’s 22-18 defeat at Old Redcliffians brought an end to their battle for second place with county rivals Redingensians.

Instead, focus now turns to finishing the league campaign on a high at Worcester Wanderers tomorrow. (3pm).

And head coach Greenslade-Jones is already looking forward to a well-earned summer break for his players and another promotion tilt next season.

“It is quite an achievement – we have only lost five games,” he said.

“It has been a long old season and the boys have performed admirably.

“The club has kicked on a gear, we have developed some youngsters and, even though we lost on Saturday, it was a good experience for the boys going down to those places.

“We have got a Berkshire Cup final (played on Wednesday) before Worcester on Saturday and the boys are all looking forward to a well-deserved break.”

Greenslade-Jones added: “It is a long, long campaign.

"The boys will be off until the end of June and then it is straight back into pre-season training. It is a good time for the boys to get away and recharge the batteries.

"We have a few areas where we need to recruit – we want to maintain our progress into next year.”

Saturday’s defeat was a frustrating one after Bracknell were regularly thwarted on the line and stubbornly refused a winning try late on.

Old Redcliffians, despite dwelling in mid-table, have preserved an unbeaten home record all season and Bracknell fell narrowly short of spoiling that accolade.

The visitors, playing down the Scotland Lane slope in the first half, fell behind to an unconverted fourth-minute try from Dan Fry.

Ben Nowak kicked over the first of two penalties in the 37th minute to put points on the board for Bracknell.

But they were in front soon after.

Captain and man-of-the-match Nico Maybury shot off from the back of the scrum and burst past the Reds’ 22-yard line before popping an overhead pass to team-mate Chris Brember, who managed to hold off a number of defenders before touching down.

Nowak was off target with the conversion, but the away side led 8-5.

Despite dominating both territory and possession, the visitors were somewhat frustrated in their efforts to put more points on the board.

That was, however, until just minutes before half time, where Bracknell pressure deep inside their opponent's 22 resulted in Maybury pouncing on a bouncing ball from a charge down to score a second try of the afternoon for the away side.

Nowak this time cleared the posts and a 10-point gap now separated the sides.

That was not to last long, though, as a penalty from Jack Steer reduced the deficit shortly before the break.

Within four minutes of the second session Bracknell had lost both Ken Dowding to the sin bin and their lead, as a Henry Goldson try, converted by Steer, swung the match back in favour of Old Redcliffians.

Yet Bracknell’s well-drilled downhill plan yielded a penalty moments later, where Nowak made no mistake and tied up the scores.

But they were undone once again just five minutes later when Goldson played in winger Henry Bird to grab what proved to be the winning points when he ran in from the blindside and skipped past his man before crossing the line.

Steer had the range with the conversion and the home side opened up a four-point margin Bracknell were unable to recover from, despite their best efforts to unlock the reds’ defence once more.

“It was a close one,” added Greenslade-Jones.

“They are a tough team who haven’t lost down there all season.

“It was their cup final and they basically wanted to stay unbeaten for the rest of the season. It was a very passionate match and unfortunately we came on the wrong side of the result.

“We were camped on their line for the last five minutes and we just couldn’t get over – we only had to score to win.

“Throughout the game we were held up over their line three times. It was just one of those days – things didn’t go for us.

“Unfortunately we didn’t win but we can hold our heads high.”

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